International Migration and Security

Are immigrants an asset or a threat? Every day, newspapers in the Western world carry articles about illegal immigrants, asylum seekers and other migrants. The focus of these articles varies greatly from migrants as a threat to one or another important societal interest, to migrants as an important asset to those same interests.

International Migration and Security brings information and analysis to the immigration debate. Experts from a variety of different disciplines – ranging from urban planning to judicial reform – are collected in this volume to consider the impact that immigrants and the concept of immigration has on their field.

The key question examined is how movement of persons affects areas as diverse as health, national security, the welfare state, cuisine, identity, law and human rights, and the political, social and legal results. This innovative and interdisciplinary book provides new insight into the debates around immigration in the twenty-first century and will be of interest to all students and researchers in the area.

Elspeth Guild is professor of European migration law at the University of Nijmegen and a partner at Kingsley Napley, a London law firm. She is the author of Immigration Law in the European Community.

Joanne van Selm is senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, and senior researcher at the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, University of Amsterdam. She is co-editor of the Journal of Refugee Studies.